The Butterfly Plague (29 page)

Charity’s bathing trunks kept falling down, so Ruth had been elected to fix them. The older children were still at school and B.J. was inside squeezing oranges in anticipation of their return.

“What does he do?” said Ruth, sewing busily away. Charity, naked but for sand, sat beside her petting the yellow dog.

“He’s an orchestra conductor,” she said.

“Fascinating,” said Ruth, knotting the thread and biting it off. “Where?”

“Up at Salinas.”

“Oh, really?” Ruth shook the bathing suit out. “I didn’t know they had an orchestra up there.”

“The Salinas Mickey-Minnie Orchestra,” said Charity.

She stood up and stuck one chubby, bronzed leg out at Ruth. Ruth helped her into her trunks and drew the newly mended string into a bow at her waist.

“There.”

Ruth gave the child a pat and then put away the thread and needle into a round wicker basket at her side.

“A Mickey-Minnie orchestra, eh?”

“Yes.”

“How many instruments are there?”

“A hundred.”

“Heavens. That’s a big band.”

“They don’t march, though. They sit down.”

“I see.”

“They sit in a giant circle and Eugene stands in the middle and plays.”

“Don’t they play, too? Doesn’t Eugene conduct?”

“No. They watch and he shows how to do everything.”

“I see.”

“They play in the middle of the night.”

“Yes.”

“At nine o’clock.”

“My goodness! That’s certainly late enough.”

“I can hear them, though, anyhow. I listen out the window.”

“Oh. I see.”

“It’s too dark to see. But I can hear them.”

Ruth stood up and dusted the sand from her legs. Charity walked around in a circle, holding onto the dog’s tail.

“Do you like music, Charity?”

Charity thought about it and then said, “No.”

“How come you like Eugene, then, if you don’t like music?”

This required no thought at all. “He’s hairy.”

She gave the dog’s tail a yank, but the dog did not respond.

“Hairy!” said Ruth. She wasn’t sure whether she should laugh or worry. “How exactly do you mean that?” she asked affecting a degree of nonchalance.

“You can’t see his face,” said Charity, finally and mercifully letting go of the dog’s tail. “Fact, you can’t see any of him but his hair.”

“And you like that.”

“Oh, yes. It’s long and pretty like Rapa…unzz…”

“Rapunzel.”

“And you can play hide-and-go-seek inside him.”

“I see. Well. That must be fun. Where did you meet him, Charity?”

“Under there,” said the child, pointing under the house.

“You should be careful, going under there. There might be scorpions…”

“Not with Eugene there. He’s a murderer.”

“I thought you said he was an orchestra leader.”

“He is. But he kills people, too.”

“And scorpions.”

“Everything. Fish. Crabs. Gully birds. Insecks. Children. And then he eats them and wipes his mouth up with his hair.”

“Dear!”

“But we ‘re friends.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear it.”

“He has a green dress he wears sometimes, too.”

“Unh-hunh.” Ruth peered into the darkness beneath the house. “Is he there now?” she asked.

“Oh, no,” said Charity. “He’s upstairs with Mommy.”

“Oh.”

“They lie in bed all afternoon sometimes and Eugene hangs some of his hair on the wall where I can see it.”

“Goodness.”

“And the rest of it he keeps on.”

“Well, that’s good.”

“And then he makes Mama sit in a circle and he conducts her with music.”

“That’s nice.”

“And then Mama conducts him.”

“I see.”

Charity caught her breath and went on. “One night I woke up and there was light from the moonlight and Eugene was walking on the beach in his dress.”

“Are you sure it was Eugene?”

“Yes.”

“How were you sure?”

Charity thought this over and then said, “‘Cause he took his hair off.”

“Oh.”

“After that he sat on the sand and cried.”

“How sad.”

“I wanted to go down but Mommy caught me and said we should leave Eugene alone.”

“Quite right,” said Ruth. “If he was sad, then he’d want to be alone.”

“That isn’t what Mama said.”

“Oh? What did she say?”

“She said Eugene was waiting for somebody and we mustn’t…interrup’ him. She said someone was coming for him and he didn’t know when and he didn’t know who but he was waiting.”

“Goodness.”

“An’ Mama said Eugene was a good person and only wore his dress when he was sad.”

“Poor Eugene.”

“But I think Eugene must always be sad.”

“Why is that?”

“‘Cause every night, now, I see him, every night. In his dress.”

“Really!”

“Yes. An’ I see you, too, some nights, Auntie Ruth.”

“Oh, dear,” said Ruth. “If you see me then you’re up very late…much too late for little girls.”

It was true. Ruth did, on some nights, walk the beach.

“Are you sad, too, Auntie Ruth?”

“No, dear.”

“Are you waiting for someone, then?”

“No, dear.” (Not anymore.)

“Then why do you walk on the beach and cry?”

“Well, maybe I cried because—a while ago I was sad.”

“An’ you’re not sad any more?”

“No.”

Suddenly Charity said, “Where did your hair go, Auntie Ruth? Where did all your hair go?”

Ruth thought for a moment and then smiled and turned to Charity and said, “Why, I gave it to Eugene, of course. It’s my hair that he’s wearing.”

This didn’t faze Charity at all.

“I thought so,” she said. “‘Cause that’s ezzactly what Eugene says himself. An’ I believe him—every word he says.”

Tuesday, November 15th, 1938

There is a sea drift in morphine, and Naomi gradually began to float upon it.

Her mind hung back in the past where the waves of old events licked at it—gently one moment, violently the next; but through it all, through memory and fear, amusement and regret, she did not alter course. It could not be altered now, either by turning back or by turning aside. There was only following, forward.

Thus, on the drift, she perceived her wavering dream; on the sea drift of morphine and memory:

George’s loved ones. His women. They were a subject of amusement to Naomi. They always had been. She would see him walking, hands at war behind his back, making love-circles down in the gardens at Falconridge. The current mistress (or the woman currently being wooed, as the case might be) would always look her best in these garden walks. She would have worn her best dress. Been to her hairdresser and received the best treatment. She would be at her best silence. Silence was important in a woman, so that George could make noises.

In the gardens, which were cunningly laid out in circles (a circle mesmerizes, lulls) George would walk his ladies with passionate steps. He led; they followed gracefully after.

Lying in her woolen bed-coat, Naomi saw them all as of old, name by name, face by face, and she drifted.

She moved through a selection of times, never pausing where she did not care to pause, remembering—reliving swiftly what had taken years to endure and years to survive. Other events, short in themselves, required hours of circling—a wide and long approach—a certain charming wariness.

The building and organization of Falconridge was ignored. It had taken four years of dust, carpenters, stonemasons, and yelling. Now, she only saw it as it was—or had been—finished and resplendent. Twenty servants. All those Chinamen. In hats.

Her birth was ignored. Her distant parents wavered on the brink of memory where both had been killed in a railroad accident in the year when Naomi was ten. She and her sisters had grown up in the home of her grandparents—more vividly remembered. Her grandfather had manufactured pianos. The house seemed endlessly filled with visiting celebrities—pianists—conductors—touring opera stars—even, from time to time, actors and actresses. Thus, the bug had bitten when she was sitting, in fact, upon the knee of Edwin Booth in 1892, the year before his death. She was twelve. She had provided a small drama in her grandma’s parlor that day, by asking Mr. Booth to recount for her his memories of the shooting of Mr. Lincoln. No one had thought to forewarn her that the subject of assassination was taboo and, in fact, no one had thought to inform her that Mr. Booth was not the Mr. Booth, but only his brother. However, Naomi forgave him for not being the assassin she imagined him to be, because he recited so beautifully for her Caesar’s speech from Shakespeare: “Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once.” Naomi never could nor ever did forget the flavor of that voice, nor the lack of reproach in his eyes, nor the somber, bony grandeur of his knees.

But George. She always, by whatever channel, returned to George—and Falconridge.

He was already entertaining mistresses. She knew there was no real difference between their experience and her own. Naomi had insisted on marriage, that was all. And being in a position of responsibility (the whole country was looking at his films), it was easy for George to be convinced that he needed the image of a father and a husband.

This is not to say that George did not love Naomi. He did. But he was like a man with worms. His appetite was appalling. It could not be satisfied.

His mistresses had a few things in common. “George’s List,” Naomi called them. They were all wealthy. Each had fine ankles. Each had large eyes and each had an unending sense of the possibilities of her own femininity. They did not at all (but for the size of eye and the shape of ankle) resemble one another physically. Some were tall, some tiny. Some had busty bosoms, some had none. Some smoked and swore, some were dainty. They all were women of rare beauty. Most of them were film stars, stage actresses, singers, and this, of course, was all taking place in the Dream of 1905 to 1922.

Seventeen years.

They were married in New York in 1904. She was twenty-four years old. It took Naomi three years to decide that she would brook fate and have a baby. Ruth was born. That was good. Ruth being a girl, she need not and did not remark on her blood to George.

In 1910 they began making movies in earnest. (Before that it had been almost a pastime, between stage plays.) In 1910 George went back to having his mistresses.

Naomi became popular.

She appeared not only for George but for Griffith and Mendes. She made eleven films in one year.

They moved to Hollywood in 1914. They were the first. The others followed.

Meanwhile, Adolphus had been born.

This was the beginning of Naomi’s nightmare. She kept the secret for eleven years. Until 1922.

Then George found out.

It wasn’t that Dolly didn’t bleed in that first year. He did. But Naomi rushed him in a blinding parlay of speed and secrecy to the right people at the right times, and many tragedies were successfully aborted.

In Russia, the Tsarina was going through much the same thing. Naomi read of it all with great interest. The figure of Rasputin loomed large in her dreams. She sought religious cures herself, in secret, from priests and charlatans. Many hands were raised above Dolly. Many prayers were said. But there was only one Rasputin. And his days were numbered. Ultimately, he died, very much against his divine will, and soon afterward the Tsarina and the stricken Tsarevitch, her son, were murdered, too. Shot with guns. They bled to death. After all that staunching and praying.

There was nothing left to read in the papers. Hope dwindled. So Naomi sought out and read the histories of the European royal houses. What had they done? Suffered. That was all. Endured and died. Many died in accidents. Carriage deaths and motorcar deaths. Assassinations. Plots. Europe was cruel to its kings and princes. They were cruel to themselves.

Whatever she read, it was collectively a history of scratches and disasters. A hemophilic child cannot, like every other child, be stung by bees, pick up nails, cut out paper dolls, fall down, have boisterous friends, or stand by windows.

Invention is the enemy of such a child.

To be a parent to this child is to know, never, any peace. Any sleep that is not afraid. Any pause in searching.

There is no medicine. There are no doctors.

There are only Rasputins. And they die.

Naomi, however, was able to have a career, and this provided her sanity. You are aware of this career. More’s the pity if you aren’t. Those eyes! That nose. The laughter—always silent. She was retired before sound. Small-waisted, dressed in ankle-length chiffons and silks, she stormed the hearts and imaginations of America. Naomi Nola. Sprung from the forehead of Jove and the knee of Edwin Booth.

Oddly enough, she had no public abroad. She was totally American. She exuded (in silence) sweetness of breath and softness of touch. Her allure was circular. Round-eyed, round-minded. She maintained the promise of virginity without its pallor. She was marvelously alive. She bespoke, before the fact, wholesome American motherhood. (Irony.) She excelled in three basic emotions which were much cherished by her public: laughter (an emotional state all its own), sadness (undefined, just”sadness”—a sort of tranquil melancholy), and gaiety. Gaiety is not laughter. Having watched her, you know that. It is a state of mind. But Naomi was gay. She was beginning to understand.

She was perhaps not a great star. But she was wonderfully popular. She founded George’s reputation, and when the time came to retire (twelve years is a long time for one face and one smile) she retired with absolute composure. She always knew when something was over. It did not disturb her.

Her contemporaries (Mary Pickford, Theda Bara, Pola Negri, the Gishes, Letitia Virden) came back and back and back. They wanted more. Naomi smiled. In 1923, Theda Bara made a comeback. It was tragic. But funny. A comeback in 1923! Movies were ten years older, but it seemed, sometimes, they were only ten years old.

Now it was 1938.

And there was still the dream, and the drift, as she remembered.

Her screen lovers—her husband—her children—her home.